Eye - 18 March 2016

Voltaire's history of Friends

François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), known as Voltaire. Oil on canvas by Maurice Quentin de La Tour. | Photo: Via Wikimedia Commons.

The curious attention of Voltaire

The French Enlightenment writer Voltaire is best known for his satirical novella Candide. He also penned, however, a series of Letters on the English. Four of the twenty-four letters, written during Voltaire’s exile in England, were on the subject of Quakers.

In his very first sentence he explains that ‘the doctrine and history of so extraordinary a people were worthy [of] the attention of the curious…

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